Sales Summit and why it didnt sell for me

Two weeks back, I attended my first big "Sales Summit". I'd already talked to a lot of these guys on the phone, but that was a good opportunity to put a face behind the voice. It was an exciting time to hear the guys speak and it was very evident why all the business was coming in. Some of the guys were so motivational that you had Goosebumps.

It was also those full suit days, where you had to wear it all the time. Of course foundation day is also one such occasion but who wears it all the time. Its okay here because it is cold...Interestingly, 95%+ people wore black and no one took a chance. I think very few wanted attention on themselves; its always easy to get a ton of work in these summits come your way and one way to tackle that is "sync with the crowd". Some people took it to the extremes. Two guys had the same color, same brand suits, and to top it all, the exact same tie. You can imagine their state of mind when speaker after speaker picked on them. And the icing was when their photo was taken and circulated the next day with the classic "Mastercard" caption. Ticket fare to summit - 150$, Classic Black Armani suit - $ 1750, Wearing the same suit, the same pant and the same tie as your colleague - Priceless.

Exciting part of any such summit is the food, and on the second day, there was authentic Indian food... I haven’t eaten so much for quite some time as I did on that day...

But, I don’t remember that with fondness because the end result was a group photo; now, with 200 people to be photographed, Mike had to take it in four pieces and stitch it together. The sad part was the end result of the stitch. I was so reduced in height that I looked about 5 feet. And those friends whom I used to ridicule for being a lil short have now save the photo and some have even been rumored to frame it. Somebody should move the US congress to pass a bill which will prohibit Stitching..

"I know where you are coming from"

Even though we say Indians can speak good english, some of the phrases here can rub you the wrong way especially if you fail to see the fine point. Not that I'm failing to see it; but I was wondering how a typical self proclaimed head strong english guru would react to some of these phrases; here we go..

One common usage is "Ah I see where you are coming from" to mean "Ok, I understand the basis of your thoughts and how you are arriving at the conclusions"... Now, for our guy mentioned above, the reaction could be " What do you mean where I am coming from.. I come from karamana.. what has that got to do with our conversation.. Are you trying to say I don’t know about the US" Pooff!! When I say this, I'm always reminded of Russell Peters and his story about his dad.

Another usage (albeit not common) was this; we had a few emails going back and forth on a "prospective customer" and one person wanted to know how big a deal we are landing. so he asks "Mark, are you a fisherman?" in order to ask "What kind of big fish are we landing here; could it be a shark or is it only a minnow?" Ah god help us if it reached our guy... "What??? fisherman??? I'm a high class Nair from the town of Karamana... how dare you call me a fisherman"...


US-English could be tough...
And hey guys, no discrimination against Karamana ok... it's just that Karamana was the first city (eh town.. oops junction) that came to mind.

A new line of business

Even as I complete 6 months in the US, I'm always brought to the reality of how life here can take u by surprise, and how much of pitfalls there are for you to stumble and make yourself look bad..

I had to attend a key summit and so I went suit shopping.. now, for a person of my build, its very difficult to get one that doesn’t seem like being covered in a sack. Fortunately for me, I got a 36S in a very good and unique color, so I went for it only to realize that the pant length was only 30 where I needed 32. Now Vinod who was with me said that there are altering shops and they would increase the length. I bought the suit.

Two days later, Vinod and I went to the altering shop; its some distance away from the office, but we preferred to walk. Now, S. California has started to get hot, and so walking in white shirts and stuffed in neck-ties wasn’t too pleasing an experience and I was concerned I got Vinod also involved.

Anyways, we FINALLY reached our destination, and there was a Chinese lady at the store; the usual "Hello how are you" was done and i took out the pants and rattled off "I want to increase the length, take off this folding and have once cm from the bottom left. That should do" The woman had her mouth so open that you could drive a truck through it. She goes "what what what". Vinod takes over "He wants to lengthen it". She says "By How much"... "2 inches".. “okay”... As easy as that. I pacify myself by thinking she was not knowledgable enough to understand my highly polished english. (Am also reminded of the film Mazha peyyunnu… Mohanlal – “Please don’t lengthen it”)

She prepared the check (the same old "bill" back home) and said to us "Tuesday". Man!! A week to increase the length of a pant. But I got the shock of my life when I saw the amount. 16$. To put things in perspective, an Arrow or a Dockers pant costs around 6-10$ in a sale. I could've got three pants for the stitching charge. That very thought gave me the jitters. We silently collected the check and came out.

Somehow, the walk back seemed to last forever.

I’m so tempted to resign and open a tailoring shop instead!!